The Thing from Another World

Rating:
Summary: Endlessly scary and fun
Review: I have been watching this movie since I was a kid in the 50's. Scared the pants off me then and still makes me enjoy a good cringe even now in the 21st century.
Alien Vegetable spaceman gets carried out of the ice encased in a block of clear ice, the ice was left around its crashed(?) spaceship. The dopes take it to the only habitable place in a thousand miles, a weather/research station in the Arctic. Vegie thaws, wants to eat humans and does. Sucks blood and fluids and hangs out in 40 below zero weather. Lays a bunch of baby vegies and then continues killing heroic but dumb Army Air Force guys without enough sense to stay out of the things way.

Now all that said, I will give it five stars because it still gives me the shivers and makes me watch it and ignore my Laptop and net surfing.
The movie is really a classic of classics and worth the price. I hate that the people in power in the movie industry don't care enough to move it to DVD. To bad because I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Perhaps in the near future there will be a DVD release.

Rating:
Summary: We want "The Thing from Another World" on DVD!
Review: Another black and white classic form the 1950's. Creepy with great music and likeable characters.

Rating:
Summary: The classic 1950's science fiction film of cold war paranoia
Review: "The Thing From Another World" remains the best of the 1950's black & white science fiction films, avoiding both the fake monsters of "Them," its ideological counterpart, and the piety of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I still remember the first time I saw this movie and realized that here were characters who talked as fast as I did. I know Robert Altman and "M*A*S*H" get the credit for "inventing" over-lapping dialogue, but that seems a bit absurd to me after watching the conversation and group discussions throughout this film. I am teaching a Science Fiction literature class for the first time this semester and I wanted them to also watch an example of a classic 1950s science fiction film and this film was my immediate choice.

As John Carpenter reminded us in his 1982 "remake," the 1951 version is not even remotely faithful to John W. Campbell, Jr.'s classic sci-fi short story, "Who Goes There?" Campbell wrote of a stranger visitor from another planet who could take on human appearance, so that the problem was that you never knew if the guy sitting next to you was your buddy or the monster. "The Thing" offers a monster from outer space, but with atmosphere, pacing and wit rarely seen on the silver screen. Charles Lederer gets screen credit for the script, but we know know both Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht had a hand in the writing as well (you can find Lederer's original script on line to check out the differences for yourself), and it has been taken as gospel for years that Hawks had some hand in the direction as well (as did Orson Welles according to some). After all, this was Christian Nyby's first screen credit as a director and he went on to direct mostly television series from "Gunsmoke" to "Kojak." Whatever the background of the story, what is important is that this film manages to combine claustrophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and hypothermia into a first rate chiller.

The story is relatively simple. Something crashes in the arctic near a scientific station and Air Force Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew fly on up to see what is going on. The station is run by Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), who may well be the haughitest scientist on the planet. Just to make things interesting Hendry has a relationship with the good Doctor's secretarial assistant, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan, technically the "star" of the film). The group heads out to the crash site, where they find something buried in the ice. In one of the most famous (not to mention inexpensive) special effects shots of all time, the group traces out the shape of the buried object and discover'it is round. When attempts to use thermite to thaw out the space ship only end up destroying it, the crew finds the "pilot" has been thrown clear and frozen in a block of ice, which they obligingly take back to the station and where an electric blanket used so the armed guard does not have to look at that thing in the ice serves as the deus ex machina for getting the creature out and about. Mayhem then ensues. Note: I remember people referring to the Thing (played by James Arness, who avoids monster makeup as the heroic FBI agent in another classic 50's sci-fi film, "Them!") as the "carrot monster" movie because the creature is more like a sentient vegetable than any animal.

Unlike "Them" where the military willingly listens to the nice elderly scientists to get the big bad giant ants, "The Thing" has a more complex socio-political sub-text. Dr. Carrington declares "Knowledge is more important than life" and pontificates about how "There are no enemies in science, only phenomena to be studied." Offering a more objective point of view is Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spenser), a reporter who came along for the ride and stumbled onto the story of the century, who pointedly asks, "What can we learn from that thing except a quicker way to die?" Thus we have a conflict in the group between the scientists and the military men, although in the end it is Carrington alone who refuses to see the errors of his freethinking ways. But more importantly, Captain Hendry is not the true hero of the piece, and one of the great running gags of this film is that he is always trying to catch up with the plots of his crew, especially Bob (Dewey Martin) the crew chief, whether in regards to finding a way of dealing with the carrot monster or trying to get their captain to settle down with Nikki. Another great thing about this film is that the romantic subplot is one of the most unromantic subplots in movie history, having to do mostly with what may or may not have been said during a drinking engagement on a previous weekend.

This is one of those science fiction films where if you do not love it then you probably have not seen it, although you have probably seen people watching "The Thing" since it pops up in both "Halloween" and "Scream." Not until "Alien" do we have such a superb combination of science fiction and horror, and I would still pick the simple elegance of this 50 year old film over the special effects of Ridley Scott's film. Just compare two scenes from these films to prove by point: the chest-buster scene from "Alien" and the gieger-counter scene from "The Thing." In 2001 "The Thing" was added to the National Film registry, which is a totally appropriate piece of timing. Finally, remember: "Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"

Rating:
Summary: An American classic
Review: This is truly an American classic. It has the fast paced, overlapping dialogue that I think of as a trademark of Howard Hawks. The movie plays like a house on fire, and will not disappoint the discerning viewer.
The action gets started because of a couple of acknowledged bone-headed moves; the accidental distruction of the ice-encased spaceship (listen carefully to the dialogue in that scene) and an accident with an electric blanket. These are the kind of mistakes that a bunch of over-eager scientists with something new and unique on their hands would make, and it lends the whole story line a kind of insane authenticity. The fellow growing baby monsters in a flowerbed with bottles of human plasma as watering cans becomes the usual kind of villain (science over the presevation of humanity...you've seen it before) but not before really irritating everyone. I love that he is "exhausted" in this scene but then leaps up to lecture everyone at length on his findings. The "girl" in the picture fades away really quickly, however early in the movie she actually ties our hero up (!) and ... taunts him, which I was surprised to see in a movie from this time period. James Arness is the monster without a trace of humanity which makes it all the more satisfying when they finally nail him. No grey areas here!
Fabulous. I love this movie.

Rating:
Summary: With A Minimum of Ingedients, A Classic is Made
Review: A team of scientists goes to an Arctic military base to investigate a crash-landed spaceship. They retrieve a frozen creature from the ship -- then accidentally let it thaw. Chaos ensues, and the crew of the base are in a fight for their lives.

Not much money was spent on this movie, the special effects are minimal, the cast is not big-name, there are few sets used, and the story is not complex. Despite all of that, the film is a science fiction/horror classic. How? By doing everything just right and by never giving you a dull moment. A good cook can make a great stew with few ingredients, if he or she knows what he or she is doing.

Rating:
Summary: As Scary Today as it was In 1951
Review: Michael Criton calls this one "the best science-fiction film ever made." I believe he is right. I first saw this in the theatre 50 years ago when I was just a little tyke. It scared the Hell out of me, and made such a lasting impression that I was truly excited many years later to appear as an extra with the lead, Kenneth Tobey, in STRANGE INVADERS. Seeing THE THING again 50 years later, I remembered every single scene. How's that for being memorable? It is probably the only sci-fi film from the 50s that is still as effective today as it was then. This one is an absolute must for the collection so why isn't it on DVD?

Rating:
Summary: A blood-drinking carrot from space
Review: This is a classic; it really is. It's taut, suspenseful and scary. It's pretty obvious how it influenced _Alien._ I'm even able to overlook the fact that James "Gunsmoke" Arness (who is 6'6") plays a murderous blood-drinking Vegetable From Space (one of his doubles in this movie was a dwarf). This far, far transcends the typical Grade-B SF/horror film.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Dillon from outer space.
Review: Heres an early vehicle for James Arness, as the Thing. Great classic sci-fi with a twist. You have a scientist wanting to save it and the airforce wanting to kill it. A spaceship is blasted from the ice and a creature thaws out and causes death and panic. Ken Tobey vs. James Arness in the cold arctic. Wheres the DVD??

Rating:
Summary: The first-and the best- of the alien invader movies.
Review: They always say "Less is more," and this 1951 offering by classic film producer and director Howard Hawks justifies that expression. He fulfills both jobs thanks to assistance from co-director Christian Nyby, a intelligent and suspenseful script by Charles Lederer, a cast of unknowns(headed by Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey), an authentic recreation of the Arctic by RKO Pictures at San Fernando film ranch, and a bone-chilling theremin score by Oscar-winner Dimitri Tiomkin. And all this with a low-budget and zero special effects (except during the climax)! It just comes to show that no matter how much recent directors can put authentic SFX and MILLIONS of dollars into their works to keep audiences satisfied, their films are inferior results (just see John Carpenter's 1982 remake of this one for example!)
A team of scientists and military unit men discover that a spacecraft has crash-lan)ed near their stationed Arctic outpost and try to free it from the ice covering it with thermite charges. The explosives blow the saucer to kingdom come, but the pilot of the vessel is thrown clear (preserved in ice) and is brought back to the base. Eventually the E.T. specimen (a creature composed of vegetable matter that can live on blood and can reproduce from any part of its body) is thawed from his frozen case (a block of ice chipped several feet from the saucer) and starts to slaughter everyone at the base. Soon, the military men are forced to try to "eradicate" the Thing, as well as refusing the pleas of a scientist (Robert Cornthwaite) who is crazily desperate to communicate with the creature in close contact.
A pure classic that rivals other alien attacker films like "War of the Worlds", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the QUATERMASS trilogy, and "Invaders From Mars", and undoubtedly one of the greatest movies ever made!

Rating:
Summary: Best of Old Theremins
Review: The first time I saw this as a child many many years ago I was impressed with how well it was made. To this day it is still entertaining even with all the great special effects and color you see in current blockbuster movies like Terminator 3. I think anyone will enjoy it, but especially fans of SciFi. The music is eerie with great use of the Theremin, a musical instrument used in SciFi movies, and the cast, sets, and direction by Howard Hawks is excellent. John Carpenters remake several years ago is great too, but I would bet he loves to watch the original B&W version as well. If you enjoy this check out "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Someday I hope they start putting some of these classics on the big screen again. This would be one you would not want to miss.